Page 11 of How to Seduce a Duke this Autumn
“Well, your mind sure had some unchaste thoughts, didn’t it?” Maddie put her hands on her hips and arched a brow.
Charlene grinned. “Oh, many unchaste thoughts in there.”
Ashley huffed but didn’t argue, instead smoothing one of the plates reverently. “Well, if you find a man soon, perhaps you shall have the joy to pick out your wedding dress with me.”
“No, thank you.”
“You know that is not her style,” Maddie pointed out. “She’d probably wed in breeches.”
Ashley’s wide eyes flashed to Charlene. “Even you would have to admit this fabric design is remarkable. I can almost feel the silk just looking at it.”
Charlene wiped her hands on a nearby rag and wandered toward the table, pulled by Ashley’s enthusiasm despite her indifference to such fripperies.
The fashion plates were stunning.
Gold thread knitted through the delicate pattern like rivers of light. Her fingers itched to trace the edges, but to her dismay, sudden emotion prickled all over her body. She couldn’t place them all at once, but she detected a slice of envy. Charlene swallowed hard, suppressing the incomprehensible sting behind her ribcage.
“Be happy for me, Char. Your turn is bound to come soon. You might be surprised,” Ashley teased, her melodic laughter lightening the moment. “But don’t frown. You’ll alarm the orchids.”
I am happy for you. But I want to be happy, too.
“Don’t mock me,” Charlene replied with a soft smile, even though Ashley’s besotted look only clarified the slight ache. Her friend couldn’t be a more radiant bride for the Earl of Linsey. “You’ve chosen well.” Now, all Charlene had to do was do the same. “I’ve no doubt you’ll dazzle everyone at the altar.”
“It will be a sight, indeed,” Maddie murmured with a smile. “I’d imagine the earl will do very much the same.”
“Do you mean dazzle? Linsey is far too manly for that,” Charlene said with a light sniff as she poured herself a cup of tea.
Ashley poured herself more tea, too. “Speaking of matrimony and matters far-flung, have you read Sera’s latest letter? She will be put out when she discovers she missed your wild adventure of finding a man.”
“What wild adventure?” Charlene muttered. “I’ve merely stated an intention.”
“But she will still miss you putting it into action,” Maddie said with a wink.
Stars, Charlene hadn’t even thought as far, yet. She only knew that she wanted what her two friends had found.
Maddie grinned and picked up a letter—probably the sixth of Sera’s updates—the only friend absent because she was on honeymoon with her new husband, a prince from Transylvania. “They are in Vienna now.”
Ashley made an encouraging motion. “What else does she say? She always has the best stories. Perhaps she has some strategies for Char to find her man.”
All at once, Charlene wanted to snatch it up and burn it or possibly devour it. She should never have announced her intention so boldly to her friends! She wouldn’t be surprised if they all but paraded a gaggle of men through her family’s townhouse later today.
But she knew there would be no strategies, since she’d already read the letter.
Ashley was right.
Sera had the best stories. They came alive on the page. Her descriptions spilled onto the paper in vivid detail. A few weeks ago, she’d written about the lavender fields in southern France, then the fresh air in the Alps, and now this:
“The sweeping countryside of Austria had left her breathless,” she wrote, soon leading her to Transylvania’s Bran Castle in the Carpathian Mountains, where her prince’s parents welcomed her as a daughter.
But more than that, Charlene could feel the love she had for Prince Alex with each and every word. How could she find such feelings before the end of autumn—before Ashley’s romantic winter wedding?
“I’m told it once belonged to a great prince whose deeds remain the stuff of legend,” Sera had written. “Though something about its austere silhouette on the craggy hills makesme certain such a place could house equal measures of romance and adventure. I can just imagine Alex as a boy here.”
Romance and adventure.
Charlene had thought that her heart had long lost its desire for such things after that blackguard…
No.
