Reckless - By Anne Stuart Page 0,1

terrible liar, and Lina would most likely see through her immediately, but it wouldn't tan to hurt to try.

Evangelina, dowager countess of Whitmore, was sitting at her dressing table, regarding her reflection in the mirror as Louise, her French maid, fussed with her hair. Clearly her countenance failed to please her, a fact which Charlotte could only find extraordinary. Evangelina was widely renowned to be one of the most beautiful women in England, from her glossy black curls to her vivid blue eyes with just the tinge of violet, her creamy skin, delicate nose and smiling, sensuous mouth. She'd never seen a freckle in her life, Charlotte thought dangerously. She was tiny, delicate, exquisite and two years younger than Charlotte's thirty. She was staring at her reflection the way Charlotte usually surveyed her own.

"I am looking positively haggard," she greeted Charlotte in a disconsolate voice. "Why is it, whenever I throw a party I end up looking fagged to death?"

"You look gorgeous," Charlotte said briskly, then remembered her plan. "I only wish I felt well enough to join you," she added in a more plaintive voice.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Lina said, turning to glare at her, much to her hairdresser's distress. "You aren't crying off at the last minute on some trumped-up illness. That only works the first three times. I need you with me.”

"You aren't going to even notice whether I'm there or not," Charlotte said, sitting down at the end of her cousin's bed, her reflection appearing beside Lina's in the mirror.

She'd long accepted her very ordinary appearance, but seeing it side by side with Lina's beauty couldn't help but be lowering.

Charlotte had no delusions about her shortcomings. She was too tall at a good six feet she towered over most men. She had awful ginger hair and freckles, she had an over-abundance of bosom, and to top everything off she was shortsighted enough that she needed to wear glasses when she read.

As if these biological indignities weren't enough, she was also poor, unmarried and too smart for her own good, as most gentlemen, including her father, were wont to tell her. Women were supposed to be short and pretty and never dare contradict a man, even if he was spouting utter nonsense. And if they were troubled by shortsightedness, they could damn well get through the season by recognizing people's voices. Who needed to read? Or so her late father had told her.

It was halfway through the miserable year of her coming out that she had put her gold-rimmed glasses firmly on her nose—another point against her, it tending toward the aquiline rather than the more popular snub—refused the milk treatments that were supposed to make her freckles fade, but which only left her smelling faintly of sour milk, and decided to be an old maid. The glasses weren't necessary, but they went well with her acquired scowl, and she wore them everywhere even when they gave her a headache.

In truth, becoming an old maid had been decided for her during the first disastrous months out, but her stern father had still harbored hope. Until she put on her glasses and trampled on her dance partners, making her an object to be feared.

There had been no second season.

"Of course I’ll notice," Lina said. "At least, for the first half hour," she added with her usual honesty, the honesty she kept for Charlotte and few others. "Besides, if you're not there backing me up how can I possibly indulge in a little discreet flirtation with Viscount Rohan?"

Charlotte ignored the iciness in the pit of her stomach. "You could wait for a belter time," she suggested. "For instance, next week, at the gathering at Hensley Court."

"Ah, but by then he'll doubtless have discovered some other sweet thing to entrance him. And I'm quite determined to have him. He's gorgeous, he's delightfully wicked and he's rumored to be the very devil in bed," she added with a convincingly lascivious sigh.

"I'm sure he is," Charlotte said, moving away, not even blinking. "However, the amatory prowess of my lord Rohan is of no possible interest to me."

Lina settled back, letting her dresser once more attack the artful array of curls. "You're such a stick-in-the-mud, Charlotte." She sighed. "You really don't know what you're missing. I'm enjoying my widow-hood immensely."

Charlotte had her doubts about that, but she wisely said nothing. When her favorite cousin had begged her to come live with her once her horrendous elderly husband died, she'd accepted gratefully.

She'd been an