Caroline’s panic magnified tenfold at the obstinate look on her friend’s face. “Char, you’re making yourself upset needlessly. I’m sure Lord Carlisle cares about how wide in the saddle you are, not that I think that’s important in a marriage, but still, I’m sure he cares about you and only wants you to be happy—”

Charlotte, remembering again the injustices he had perpetuated upon her in the name of saving a few coins, sprang out of the chair with an indignant flame in her China-blue eyes, and began to pace before the window. “He doesn’t care for anything but his precious purse. His slanderous comments about my extravagant plans for a memorable wedding were clearly the sign of a deranged mind, not to mention the lecture he read me about driving him into the poorhouse. As if that were possible! He is an earl, after all. Have you ever heard of a poor earl?”

“Well—”

“No, of course you haven’t. Unreasonable, my garters! I’m not being in the least bit unreasonable! I am the most reasonable person I know, and I know a great many people!”

“But Char, I’m sure Lord Carlisle desires only your happiness—”

Charlotte gave an unladylike snort of disbelief that felt so good, so right, she repeated it. “He made all the arrangements to be married at a tiny little parish church in Covent Garden with no one in attendance but you and that bossy Patricia, but that doesn’t mean I have to be there! This is my wedding, too, and I’ll be damned if I celebrate the most important moment of my life in an empty church!”

“Charlotte Honoria Eveline Benedict!” Caroline gasped. “Foul language on your wedding day is a bad omen!”

“God’s teeth, Caro! My whole life is in ruins and all you can think about are bad omens? You have bad omens on the brain.” Charlotte huffed as she stomped around the room.

Caroline, desperate now, faced as she was with the possibility of Charlotte making good her threat not to marry the earl, played her last card. “Have you thought of what everyone will say if you don’t marry Lord Carlisle?”

Charlotte frowned at Caro as she paced by her. “There will be a delicious amount of speculation as to why I canceled the plans at the last minute.”

Caroline shook her head, preparing to be merciless for the better good of her friend’s happiness, not to mention her own marital bliss. “They will say Lord Carlisle jilted you. They will say he changed his mind about wedding you. They will say he found the very idea of marriage to you repugnant and unbearable.”

Charlotte stopped dead and stared at her friend in horror. Her first instinct was to dispute such foul claims, but a moment of truth had her admitting that her star was not very high with the ton at that moment, and given the fickle nature of the members of Society, it was entirely possible that reaction to her jilting Alasdair would turn out as Caroline predicted. She was a social pariah now; could she stand being pitied and laughed at as well? She shuddered at that unwholesome image and quickly rethought her strategy. Perhaps an outright refusal to marry Alasdair wasn’t the solution. Perhaps there was a way to bring him to his senses and achieve her goal without having to run the risk of becoming an object of pity.