Reckless Read Free

pretty sight.”
    â€œThen why—” Charlotte began, honestly curious.
    â€œIt’s not the looking, dearest. It’s the touching. Not that you’re to let anyone touch you. If they try I’ll cut off their…ears. You’re my dearest cousin and I intend to protect you.” She looked at her for a long moment. “Wear your green sarcenet tonight, and I’ll have Louise come and do your hair as well. You may as well give it one last go before all your illusions are shattered.”
    â€œI have no illusions, I have no interest in ‘giving it one last go’ as you so delicately put it, and Meggie can take care of my hair.”
    â€œYou’re impossible!” Lina said with a sigh. “At least wear the green and not that hideous peach thing. It looks dreadful with your hair.”
    Charlotte rose from the bed and kissed Lina’s pale, delicate cheek, resisting the impulse to tell her everything looked dreadful with her hair. Except, perhaps, the sarcenet, which made her eyes green. “I’ll meet you downstairs,” she said, promising nothing, and took herself off.
    Â 
    Lina watched her cousin disappear, then turned her attention back to her reflection, trying to ignore Louise’s ministrations. Surely they were doing the right thing. One glimpse of the goings-on of the Heavenly Host and innocent cousin Charlotte might be so revolted she’d never again countenance the idea of marriage. Keeping her safe from making the same mistake Lina had made.
    She knew her cousin much better than Charlotte realized. She understood perfectly well the look in Charlotte’s eyes when Viscount Rohan entered the room. Adrian Rohan was enough to tempt even Charlotte, who persisted in saying she had no interest in men in general or the viscount in particular. And in truth, she was probably safe. Rohan could have anyone he wanted, and usually did. He’d have no appreciation for an over-tall young woman with copper hair who wasn’t quite comme il faut , one so firmly on the shelf that she may as well start wearing lacecaps and sitting with the dowagers. Which Charlotte would, if Lina would let her.
    And just in case, once Lina had finished with him he would no longer hold the faintest allure for her cousin.
    No, Rohan wouldn’t be likely to go near her, and Lina was reasonably certain that Charlotte would be immune to anyone else, no matter how handsome, charming or affluent. As for the kind of man she might be more likely to attract—some plump, elderly widower or, even worse, some pious vicar—once she saw the sort of thing men were capable of she would reject even those unappealing aspirants. In truth, she was taking her into the wilds of Sussex, to Hensley Court and the libertine gathering of the Heavenly Host, to protect her.
    Charlotte knew only a bit of the horrors of Evangelina’s marriage to the elderly earl of Whitmore, and Lina had absolutely no intention of telling her any of the unpleasant details, details that were better left in the shadows where they belonged. Those were times she refused to think about, except in the dark of night when she couldn’t help it, and she could stuff her pillow over her face to keep from screaming out loud. It was over, it was past. But she wasn’t going to chance letting the same thing happen to her darling Charlotte.
    Perhaps this wasn’t necessary. After all, Charlotte was unfortunately right: no man was likely to makeher an offer. She was thirty years old, well past her prime, too tall and too curvy to wear the current fashions well, too strong-minded, too unwilling to flatter the preening males. Observing a few nights of the Revels of the Heavenly Host should be enough to scare her away from ever contemplating changing her stance on love and marriage.
    It was a shame, because Charlotte would make a wonderful, loving mother. But motherhood came with husbands, and the price was too