CHAPTER TEN
“What is this?” Charlotte asked as Rose ran into the room carrying the parcel. It was so large that she couldn’t see her sister’s face.
“It has just arrived for you,” Rose called, her mouth muffled against the tissue paper. Harry followed her into the room.
“For me?” Charlotte repeated in surprise, putting down the book she had been reading.
“Have no fear,” Harry called, kicking the door shut behind him. “I hurried our mother away before she could see it was addressed to you.”
Charlotte frowned at the pair of them.
“Why would you do that?”
Harry took the parcel out of Rose’s hand and laid it down on the coffee table in front of Charlotte. The two of them exchanged mischievous looks and Rose rubbed her hands together, then covered her mouth with them.
“You say it,” she said behind her hands.
“You say it.” Harry waved a hand at her. “I have never even met the man.”
“You were the one who asked the butler who sent it?—”
“Well, you should have been smart enough to ask yourself.”
“Harry!” Rose practically stamped her foot in outrage, looking much younger than she was.
“All right, that is enough.” Charlotte stood and held her hands out between the pair of them, trying her best to soften the glares they were giving each other. “You two do not always need to bicker, you know. What will people think?”
“He always starts it.” Rose pointed at Harry, who now mimicked her at her side, pretending to stamp his foot in just the same way. “Look at him!” Rose cried.
“Harry,” Charlotte said, her voice deepening. “When did you become this persistent in your mischief?”
He shrugged and sat down in one of the armchairs beside her. His happiness had abruptly vanished. Charlotte moved toward him, sensing something more was behind all of his recent behavior, but Rose waved her hands manically at Charlotte.
“Open it, open it, before Mother realizes it is for you and comes running to ask who sent it.”
Charlotte looked at Harry, waiting for his confirmation, who waved a hand in just the same way, urging her on. She dropped to her knees in front of the coffee table and reached for the parcel. She untied the string and pulled open the brown tissue paper to see a white lidded box, stamped with the signature of her favorite modiste in Covent Garden.
She hesitated, staring at it in wonder.
What is this? Who would send me this?
“I thought you said to Mother you weren’t courting,” Rose declared, suddenly placing her hands on her hips.
“What? Courting who?” Charlotte looked up. “Rose, I’m courting no one.”
No one has asked me. No one would without a dowry.
She blushed deep red as she looked down at the box and lifted the lid, scarcely concentrating as she pulled back the white tissue paper beneath. She was thinking of what the Duke of Rodstonehad said to her the day before, about how a man shouldn’t have to be ‘bribed’ into marrying her.
Is that how he sees a dowry? As a bribe?
She chewed her lip and pulled back the last layer of white tissue paper. Before her was the sage green gown she had so admired in the window of the modiste’s.
“This is not possible,” she whispered, taking the shoulders of the gown and lifting it out of the box.
Harry whistled, one long note of amazement as Rose giggled, covering her mouth with her hands again.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Rose gushed, hurrying forward. “Will it fit you?”
